Heartbeats
by almostclover
Summary: They were it for each other. But it wasn't as simple as that.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: This is a Nian story. Names have been omitted for obvious reasons. I have taken creative liberties with this love story and while there are definitely elements of reality embedded within, the majority of this story is completely fictional. As such, happy reading! Review if you please!

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CHAPTER 1:

**Him...**

It didn't turn out at all like I had hoped. When I mentioned forever for the first time, I had done it with the utmost care and devotion. "You're it for me," I'd said, but the dumbfounded look on her face told me she couldn't reconcile my feelings with her own.

We were sitting on a park bench in the French Quarter at the time, soaking in the coolness of the evening air over beignets. When we first met and she found out I was from Louisiana, she made me promise to take her on a tour one day. I'd grinned her way and assured her I would, and when I brought it up again three years later she had forgotten all about it. I'm not one to go back on promises, though, and that one, flippant as it was at the time, was one I intended to keep from day one.

Our very destination, then, was a bit of destiny, and maybe you could say I was caught up in the nostalgia of it all. No matter the reason, though, the words I'd said were not uttered in a frenzy of emotion, they had been sitting on my chest since the first time we locked eyes.

Of course, her lack of response deadened the light mood of the evening and sent me reeling through past events. Up until that moment, we'd been on the exact same page, line by line and word for word. I knew how she felt for me and vice versa. Our relationship was built on honesty from the beginningmk ,. It had become one of my favorite things, the easiness of not having to wonder where we stood.

But then.

I sorted through responses in my brain like a dusty warehouse trying to find one to clear the air. Contemplating apologizes, excuses, jokes, and explanations, I ultimately chose to say nothing at all for risk of making it worse. Unlikely, but not impossible. We finished our snacks in silence, staring blankly at some street performer a few feet away to avoid the tension of the moment.

I stole a few glances her way, mostly just to make sure I wasn't completely mistaken. But the furrow in her brow and shallow set of her eyes told me all I needed to know. She was thinking just the same as me. Trying to find words to reconcile. I prayed she would find them and she did.

"It's getting late. We should probably head back for the night."

It was barely 7:30 and we hadn't even had dinner, but I didn't argue. Didn't so much as lift a finger in her direction.

"You're right."

Once we found ourselves back in the hotel room, the thick silence fell into casual conversation about nothing in particular, a joint attempt at slicing through the awkward tension.

"Are you hungry?" I'd asked. And when she replied she could eat, I ordered Italian from the room service menu and excused myself to the bathroom to cancel our dinner reservations. I had planned to surprise her with one of my favorite restaurants in all of New Orleans, but I wasn't mourning that so much as the 10 foot chasm now separating us.

Even so, she wouldn't let me stay down for long.

"Italian?" She squealed when she answered the door, already changed into an oversized sweatshirt for the evening. "Gah, you think of everything!"

I was caught off guard as she threw her arms around my shoulders, pulling me close for a hug and a quick peck on the lips.

Dinner had us reminiscing about my childhood in the deep south, laughing over cheesecake and looking out over the city as it came to life.

"Thank you for bringing me here. It's a special place." We were sitting on the bed with the balcony door propped open to let the low jazz notes seep into the room when she broke the easy silence. I paused for only a moment before I lost all resolve and glanced her way, her eyes betraying everything she wanted. Everything she would soon get.

I'd never been able to deny her, not even in a moment already cracked with unspoken thoughts. When she straddled my waist and began laying kisses along the column of my neck, I wrapped my arms around her and didn't let go until the light of the morning danced in her eyes.

_Why would I waste time wondering about the future when you're in my arms right now? _

I told myself all was right in the world, enchanting myself with all of the excuses for her strange reaction all the while knowing it was only a matter of time.

**Her...**

I was under no impression that he wasn't entirely serious about me. To be such a vibrant, carefree, comical spirit, one look in his eyes was all it took for me to understand. In those eyes, I saw passion and devotion that terrified me, but dared me to fall.

So I did. Over and over again. Most people can name a single moment in time where they fall in love, but that was never the case with us. If I fell once, I fell a hundred times, each time more so than the last.

We'd agreed to keep it quiet to make things easier, deeming it in our best interest to keep things between us to keep public attention at bay. But that was easier said than done.

It was written all over my face in every news reel and interview I replayed of the two of us. Undeniable. Intense. Epic.

And always so so sudden.

We never talked about the future and when it inevitably came up in conversation, we kept it lighthearted and dreamy, never lingering among the possibilities for very long. That was always fine by me.

I'd known for a few months that something had changed in him when it came to this philosophy of life he had so diligently taught me. I found myself ignoring it because I didn't know what else to do.

On his 35th birthday, after the party had died down and the crowd left our apartment in Atlanta, I asked him what he would wish for if he could have anything in the whole world.

I don't know what I was expecting him to say. Perhaps fame or fortune, though he had already been endowed with his fair share of both in his short lifetime. Maybe peace on earth or something heroic.

The look he gave me told me he had already given it more thought than I knew and I swallowed as he asked me if he could think about it a while.

By the time we got cleaned up and settled in for the evening, I forgot I'd even asked him a question at all, but as he slipped between the sheets behind me, he granted me his answer.

"I want a family." He breathed it out into the night air so softly I almost missed it. And then, when I didn't immediately reply, he offered some clarification. "Earlier you asked me what I would wish for if I could have anything and I've made up my mind. I want a family and I want it with you."

As his arms enveloped me, the tears began to betray me, slipping from my eyes in a flood of emotion I'd been holding back for months. It didn't come as a surprise, not really. I could see it in him every time he locked eyes with a baby across the room, every time he slipped and spoke of forever.

Misreading my emotion, he turned me in his arms and pulled me toward him until our lips locked in a kiss that tasted like salt. "Marry me." He'd uttered when we finally broke away, and in the dim light of the dark room he searches my face earnestly for the answer I have yet to give. When it's clear I must say something, raw honesty falls from my lips.

"I don't know."

The media started reporting our break up the very next day and rumors began to fly. How they got their information, I'll never know, but they got most of the story right. He wanted to settle down and I wasn't ready, and that was a seismic shift we evidently couldn't reconcile. What they don't know, though, is that I probably would've said yes had I not looked into his eyes and seen eternity staring back at me.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thanks for following and reviewing! I appreciate everyone's feedback. As you can probably tell by now, I have plans to expand this past a one-shot. I'm not sure how long it will end up being, but the idea is definitely several chapters of material. The story is about to take a turn for the worst. If you thought the last chapter was sad, melodramatic, and monologue-y… challenge accepted.

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CHAPTER 2:

**Him…**

Rejection is never a walk in the park, but it hurts the most when it's unexpected.

I overreacted. In my pain, I couldn't comprehend a world where there was any gray area for us. So instead of giving her time to explain her hesitancy toward my proposal, I shot out of the bed, throwing my clothes in a suitcase in a frenzy while she watched wide-eyed, face still damp with tears.

It was tangible, the feeling of two hearts breaking at the same time. And in my frantic madness, I didn't think about what I was actually doing. The mind has a way of playing tricks on the soul in moments of extreme emotion, and, over the course of the next few months, lying awake at night to watch the instant replay of our breakup, it didn't take long for me to recognize my mistake.

Retaliation is a basic instinct and it took over within me as a response to her rejection, sending every other rational component of my being into autopilot. _She hurt you, so hurt her back_, it whispered. And at the time, it seemed like a good idea. I remember two things distinctly before latching the door on my way out of the apartment that night. The first is how she followed me into the living room, overtaken by a fresh round of tears, arms wrapped around her slight frame clothed only in an oversized t-shirt even though it was the beginning of December. I didn't dare look her in the eyes, knowing I would find within them some excuse to stay. Instead, I reached for the door, stepping across the threshold and hearing a weak "But…" call out behind me.

The second thing I remember is my response.

A sinister smile swept across my face and I shut the door.

Coming face to face with your own mortality has its way of rearranging your priorities. Young, disillusioned me thought that I had an infinite amount of time to sort out the trajectory my life and so I put it off like a term paper. I was uninhibited enough to throw myself at my dreams without so much as a Plan B and maybe that's why it all worked out. I landed the roles and cashed in on them, surrounding myself with pretty girls and the good life.

When we first met, she intrigued me. I had grown accustomed to being attracted to starlets, but something about her was different. She didn't fall at my feet like the other girls; she looked me square in the eye. When I approached her at a casting party with the intent of wiling her with my charms, she was quick to react. Direct and matter-of-fact.

"This might be a game for you," she practically sang, "but I'm no prize to be won. I'm here to start a career and I'm not interested in all of the drama that comes with it." Then she flashed me her sweet smile, tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and sauntered off completely unbothered.

I was a goner from that point forward.

That stupid scene played out in my head on repeat as I checked myself into a hotel down the street from the apartment and downed half the mini bar. I told myself it wasn't inevitable, that there was no earthly reason for us to be doomed from day one, but as I caught my reflection in the amber ripples of bourbon, my resentment and self-loathing subsided just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the truth.

_It was never her commitment and undying love that caused you to fall, _my mind whispered into the stale midnight air. _You love her most when she doesn't love you at all._

**Her…**

The first few weeks were numbing. Lonely.

But I was under no impression that when he left, he would be walking out forever. Ironic because "forever" with him sounded so eminent and foreboding at the time when it didn't take long to realize that just the opposite was true.

I broke down and called him after about a week. When he answered the phone on the second ring, I was taken aback. I had expected the soothing comfort of his practiced voicemail, and it took me a few moments to realize he was actually on the other end of the line. He offered no greeting, waiting silently for whatever message I had to offer.

"Hi, um…" I stumbled over my words, unsure of how to explain myself. "I miss you and I just wanted to call and apologize for the other night. I know I hurt you and we were both upset, but surely we can work something out."

After a long pause, his voice cracked on the other end. "Does that mean you've changed your mind?"

I've never been one for ultimatums and his question paralyzed me. "Well…" My voice trailed off, terrified to speak and terrified to stay silent for a moment longer. "I don't really know. I love you and I want to be with you and I want more than anything to work this out, but I need…"

The dial tone on the other end of the line startled me out of my monologue, and it took longer than it should have for me to realize he hung up the phone.

When he moved on, I knew better than to assume it was to make me jealous. He wasn't some lovesick teenager. He was a grown man capable of making decisions on his own, capable of falling in love with more than just me. No, he gave me a chance at wholehearted devotion and I gave it up in fear of such a weighty commitment; I'm the child.

I've heard it said that the entertainment industry doesn't care about your personal life, but I know better. In reality, the entertainment industry only cares about your personal life when they can capitalize on it, using it to feed corporate greed and relevance, taking the most precious intimate details of your life and using them to claw their way to the top.

And here we were, two hurting people in the midst of a whirlwind of cameras and Q&As demanding answers like they could ever hope to understand. We had an unspoken agreement to stay silent in such situations and while that kept some attention at bay, it only fueled the rumor mill and set the tabloids searching deeper into our past lives and social media profiles for answers they would not find.

In the midst of it all, life marched on and it was business as usual in every painfully normal way.

When we kissed on set, it tasted like memories and it never failed to set the butterflies to dancing in my belly, even under the heat of the camera and the methodical flow of technicality. I was ashamed of it for the longest time, shuffling off the set as soon as the director yelled "Cut!" to get over myself. That was all good and fine until I dared catch his gaze one day after a particularly long and amorous scene. I was expecting, hoping really, to find a dull indifference that would shock me back to my senses. But for a moment, his eyes flashed with longing and I felt like I had just been burned.

The slip of paper acknowledging the end of my contract landed on my producer's desk the very next day. I'd contemplated signing it for a long time, but I never worked up the courage to do it. Until I saw the wild hint of need in his eyes and realized what a dangerous path we were on, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy in some sort of twisted psychodrama. It had to end before it took us both under.

And after six beautiful seasons, it did.


End file.
